Where does Eastern Europe start and Western Europe end? The Iron Curtain no longer exists, but its legacy does. Eastern Europe has an identity and a culture very different from the rest of Europe. Attempting to escape from a tortured past, but forever being influenced by it. This blog deals with and discovers a region stuck in limbo between East and West.

Tag Archives: Apuseni Mountains

The train to Transylvania began to climb slowly out of the Crisana plains and makes its way along the northern edge of the Apuseni Mountains. With passport control done, I was now headed toward Cluj without anything else to detain me. The view from the train window was a mesmerizing distraction. The forest was an explosion of color, as fall foliage covered the hillsides. Dotting the landscape were pear shaped stacks of hay. From time to time the train would halt at a larger town where a few passengers would disembark. The landscape gripped me to such an extent that I began to imagine disembarking at one of these towns, disappearing into the woods forever and leaving the world behind. The serenity and peace I felt while looking at the scenery had a primeval allure, allowing me to entertain a dangerous idea that almost made sense.

Banffyhunyad – A Vanishing BreedAt Huedin I saw the spires of unfinished Gypsy palaces glittering in the early afternoon sunlight. At times it felt like I was traveling through a world of fantasy and fiction. The fiction of Miklos Banffy’s Transylvania Trilogy felt close at hand. Most places looked as though nothing had changed since 1905, the year that the trilogy begins. This was deceptive, because Transylvania had changed irreparably since that time, especially for Hungarians. Take as an example Huedin, bigger than a village or town, but smaller than a city, with a population of 9,300. Up until the end of the First World War it was officially known as Banffyhunyad, signifying the fact that for five hundred years the Banffy family owned the entire town, as well as the surrounding area. Huedin may have once been part of such diverse polities as the Kingdom of Hungary, the Principality of Transylvania, the Habsburg and Austro-Hungarian Empires, but for centuries the real power lay with the Banffy’s, who were the crème de la crème of the region’s aristocratic nobility.

The 20th century changed this situation radically. In 1920 Transylvania became part of Romania and has stayed that way ever since with the exception of a short interlude of Hungarian rule during World War II. The change in national borders led to a slow, but dramatic transformation in Huedin’s ethnic makeup. Demographic statistics bear this out. In 1910, during the waning days of Historic Hungary, over 90% of the town’s population was Hungarian speaking. By 1930 it was down to 70%. Then during World War II Huedin’s Hungarian Jewish population was wiped out by the Holocaust. The most precipitate decline took place in the half-century following the war, with the anti-Hungarian policies of the Ceaucescu regime and then the fall of Communism, thousands of Hungarians fled westward. According to the latest Romanian census taken in 2011, Hungarians makeup only 28% of Huedin’s populace.

Huedin is a reflection of what has happened to Hungarians all over Transylvania. To put the demographic figures in perspective, imagine walking down the street in Huedin a century ago. The only language you were likely to hear was Hungarian. Walk down the same street today and you would be lucky to find a Hungarian speaker. Most of the storefronts now have words written in Romanian rather than Hungarian. The name of the town and train station has changed. A whole way of life, administrative, economic and cultural has largely disappeared. To get an idea of just how unique this vanishing has been, try to imagine the Romanians who make up the overriding majority of Huedin’s inhabitants today disappearing in the 21st-century. It is an inconceivable thought. How could such a thing happen? There is no possibility, but the same thing would have been said at the beginning of the 20th century.

Agents Of Change – The War At Home
Despite the cries of Hungarian nationalists who say the land was stolen from them or Romanian nationalists who say the land was always theirs, the truth of the matter is that two World Wars and the radical ideologies of communism and fascism acted as the ultimate agents of change in Transylvania. In turn these historical events and trends were to transform society and the idea of nation-states. Miklos Banffy lived through much of this turbulence. Like other Hungarian aristocrats in the region Banffy went from exalted status to anachronism during his lifetime. He was a deeply humanistic man who believed Hungarians and Romanians could live together, share power and create a more equal society that better represented the interests of all ethnic groups. In a sense Banffy’s dream came true when Romanian joined the European Union in 2009. This boosted minority rights. The Hungarians in Transylvania today have more rights than any minority has ever had in the region. The same goes for the Roma. The Romanians are firmly in control of the country, but xenophobic nationalism has been moderated by a modicum of prosperity and a fitful, flawed democracy.

Is there still discrimination? Of course, but the situation is much better today for all groups than it ever has been historically. A critique of this opinion would likely mention that the Hungarian aristocracy has vanished. How could it be better for Hungarians? Well the majority of Hungarians in Transylvania a century ago were not aristocrats. The lowliest Hungarian in Transylvania today has exponentially more economic and political opportunity than the same Hungarian would have had 150 years ago. That fact does little to heal the psychological wounds of Hungarians who still feel the loss of Transylvania. On the other hand, no matter what extremist political parties try to stir up or the media says about inter-ethnic relations, the citizens of Transylvania are not at war. From everything I would witness while visiting the region people are getting on with their lives. This region has had enough of war, for now.

Huedin & the landscape of Cluj County as seen through a train window

Obscured By Beauty – A Truth About Transylvania
From the train window Huedin looked docile if not dramatic. Mountains in the distance formed a compelling backdrop to the sleepy settlement. Nothing had changed and everything had changed, it all depended upon your degree of knowledge and personal perspective. Transylvania was a timeless landscape inhabited by a diverse and dynamic society. The beauty and tranquility that I witnessed from the train window were enchanting, but it also obscured the massive upheaval that had transformed this region beyond all recognition.